Jay Johnson's first impression of both Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes was strikingly similar to how 28 big league teams will feel on draft day: admiration from afar with little to no chance of seeing them play for his team.
Back when he was the head coach for Arizona, Johnson distinctly remembers how struck he was by the talent of both players.
For Crews, the famous prep outfield prospect who was a mainstay with USA Baseball's national teams and consistently regarded as one of the most talented players in his class, it was during the 15U USA Baseball roster trials.
"When I saw him I was like, 'Man, that is a real player, "Johnson said. "You could see the talent, but he was so far advanced (in terms of) actually knowing how to play the game (compared) to the normal 15-year-old. It was like Nick Madrigal's instincts and how he moved but with more explosive and athletic talent, if you will."
Johnson would have loved to recruit Crews to Arizona, but Crews announced his commitment to Paul Mainieri's Louisiana State program around the time of the 15U trials.
Skenes wasn't as highly regarded as Crews as a high schooler, but Johnson still remembers being blown away with his talent-but it was his hitting ability that caught his eye at the time.
"I remember seeing him hit in high school on the circuit-Area Codes or something like that and then he was committed to Air Force and I was like, 'Gosh, this has to be one of the best players Air Force has ever signed." " Both Crews and Skenes were members of the 2020 high school class, which meant their senior spring seasons were cut dramatically short and both had to contend with a five-round draft.
Skenes at the time was unranked and committed to Air Force, and even with a full spring seemed unlikely to sign out of high school. Crews was a bit different. He had struggled on the 2019 summer showcase circuit but still possessed some of the best pure bat speed in the class. He ranked as the No. 54 prospect overall and could have potentially moved back up draft boards with a strong senior season at Lake Mary (Fla.) High.
Both players would make it to campus. Crews made headlines when he removed himself from the draft entirely and honored his commitment to LSU. Skenes went undrafted out of El Toro High in Lake Forest, Calif., in the shortest draft in history and made it to campus at Air Force.
"I remember when (Crews) announced he was pulling his name out of the draft. I was like, 'Wow, that's amazing for LSU. That guy is going to tear up college baseball," " Johnson said.
"And then with Paul in 2021... (Air Force) came down to play us at our place in a tournament with Wichita State, and (coach Mike Kazlausky) and I were just standing outside my office talking, and he goes, 'Hey I got this freshman who's really good.
He can't stay here for three years because he's going to be a first-round pick." " Johnson knew exactly the freshman he was talking about and told Kazlausky to please let him know if Skenes ever decided to transfer. He would love the opportunity to coach him at Arizona.
That didn't happen.
Instead, Johnson made a transfer of his own. The LSU coaching job opened after Mainieri retired following the 2021 season. After leading Arizona to a Pacific-12 Conference championship and College World Series appearance in 2021, Johnson moved from Tucson to Baton Rouge and became the 26th head coach in Tigers history.
Johnson got a chance to coach Crews immediately. A year later, after LSU lost in the 2022 Hattiesburg Regional in Mississippi, Johnson started a two-month process of recruiting Skenes, who entered the transfer portal after the 2022 season.
"The only good thing that came out of Covid was the five-round draft," said Johnson, who found success at Arizona in part by getting high-profile 2020 high school hitters Jacob Berry and Daniel Susac to campus. "Between Daniel Susac, Jacob Berry, Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews those are four pretty good players I've had the opportunity to coach."
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1398697516/1687790698/articles/cfdP2LOqE1690797796858/0108554659.jpg]
Susac, who remained at Arizona, and Berry, who followed Johnson to LSU, both became first-round picks as draft-eligible sophomores in 2022. Crews and Skenes will do the same this year.
The two are currently ranked as the Nos. 1 and 2 players in the class. They have a real chance to make history as the first teammates ever to be drafted with the first two picks.
The one question: which player are the Pirates going to choose with the No. 1 overall pick?
"He's everything you (want) in a five-tool player... This year is honestly historic what he's doing... And it's not just like he's performing. He has the tools to back it up. Wherever he goes, it's 1 or 2... It'd be hard to pass on a guy with that kind of talent and ability. He was arguably the No. 1 player coming in and he hasn't made you change your mind on it." -Anonymous scout on Dylan Crews
If there were ever questions about Crews' hitting ability in high school, there are none now.
Since the first day he set foot on campus, he's been one of the best players in college baseball. He set LSU's freshman home run record in 2021 with 18 and was the lone underclassman to make the 2022 preseason All-America first team. He followed up his 2021 campaign by hitting 22 home runs and slashing .349/.463/.691 as a sophomore, all while moving from right field to center, making the Southeastern Conference all-defensive team and being a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award.
The pressure of his draft year did not impact Crews in the least. Throughout much of the 2023 season, Crews led all Division I hitters in batting and flirted with a .500 average weeks into SEC play. He reached base safely in each game of the regular season and through 58 games had hit 420/.567/.710 with 15 home runs and career bests with a 20.9% walk rate and 13.7% strikeout rate.
It's not just surface-level production. Crews has produced some of the loudest exit velocity data in the country, with an average exit velocity of 95-96 mph and a 90th percentile EV at 109110. He's an elite hitter who has paired standout physical tools with an approach that is among the best in the nation.
"Dylan is the best college hitter position player I've ever seen," Johnson said. "Everybody talks about the five tools. Those easily check. You guys can see and rank all of those things. He has all of them. I think just in terms of consistent performance at the highest level of college baseball that's where he stands out.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1398697516/1687790698/articles/cfdP2LOqE1690797796858/1588815888.jpg]
"It has shown up literally in just about every game since I have been here in the last two years, at the most important times, against the best competition. And so it's not a project player. It's a player who has all of the necessary ingredients but they show up on game day. Every single day.
"I don't know if you can even calculate WAR for college baseball, but his would probably be one of the highest in history."
Scouts have said Crews has five above-average to plus tools across the board, which puts him solidly into the rare, and potentially overused, five-tool player category. He has turned in plus run times and projects to have above-average speed even as he ages.
Crews has proven to be an above-average defender in center field who takes advanced routes to the ball and has an excellent first step. His easy plus arm would be an asset at any outfield position.
He showcases the same double-plus bat speed that he had in high school and has near 70-grade raw power in batting practice. Crews has always flashed those loud tools, but the biggest improvement in his game since he was a tooled-up but overly aggressive swinger in high school is his plate approach.
"Just the plate discipline part of it is really impressive," said one scout. "Obviously, when he hits the ball it just takes off. It's a different sound off the bat. But just his at-bats and the at-bat quality were really good. I saw him in high school and there was some chase against secondary stuff off the plate.
"Now he's not chasing. He's got pretty good plate discipline. He's got a pretty good idea of what he's doing and he doesn't miss pitches. Plus he can let the ball travel deep and he's got power the other way. He did everything you can ask when I saw him. They didn't have an answer for him. They couldn't get him out."
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1398697516/1687790698/articles/cfdP2LOqE1690797796858/8WZCMgsQ_1690798323041.jpg]
The ability to confidently the ball travel while trusting his hands and still hitting for impact to the opposite field is the real separator for Crews, and what has led to his supreme consistency in the SEC.
"It's a combination of that bat speed and his tremendous vision," Johnson said. "He has this ability to make later decisions than any player I've ever seen, which leads him to laying off borderline pitches, or pitcher's pitches or balls, and allows him to make a late decision on a mistake. And he ends up hitting those balls out to right field like nobody I have ever seen.
"It is incredibly, incredibly impressive. I see it as a combination of the right approach, that bat speed and vision. To put all those things together, he doesn't swing at balls and he crushes mistakes."
Johnson has called Crews the best recovery hitter he's ever seen. There have been instances when he looks beat on a pitch, and the average college hitter likely would be, but he's able to flash his hands through the zone, make a late decision and hammer the ball over the opposite-field fence.
In two-strike counts, Crews is able to widen his stance, almost remove his stride entirely and still have the power to drive the ball with authority.
"I explain him as the perfectly built baseball player," Johnson said. "I mean he's got an unbelievably strong lower half, unbelievably strong core, he moves correctly and it allows him to be into the ground and incredibly balanced with two strikes.
"So you have that elite vision. You have that elite bat speed and now you have this approach where he is balanced and can react to fastballs when people try to sneak it by him. He spits on the breaking ball out of the zone. He spoils the borderline pitch and he sends the mistake back up to the middle of the field for an extra-base hit, even in a two-strike approach."
"He's definitely the best college pitcher I've seen this year... He's probably the best guy since (Stephen) Strasburg... Just dominating. From last summer to where he is now, he's just made a huge step up. Stuff, pitchability, strikes, obviously throwing harder. But the slider has gotten to be a true wipeout pitch. He stacks up right with Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer... He's going to be a quick mover to the big leagues. I'd say he'll take the same route that Cole and Bauer took. I wouldn't be shocked if he was in a rotation by this time next year." -Anonymous scout on Paul Skenes
If you're going to transfer and focus on pitching, you could do a lot worse than moving to a team that employs Wes Johnson as its pitching coach.
The former Twins pitching coach created shockwaves when he left the big leagues in the middle of the 2022 season to join Johnson's stockpile of talent in Baton Rouge. Skenes has been the most obvious beneficiary of his tutelage.
The two immediately got to work during the fall, with a specific focus on Skenes' slider. It didn't take long before loud reports trickled back from scouts who had seen the 6-foot-6 righthander in his new purple-and-gold digs.
"Apparently, he has been godly this fall," one scout said at the time of Skenes, a three-time, first-team All-American who spent the first two of those seasons as a two-way player. "(He threw) 95-100 (mph) on the fastball with like 70-grade movement. And hitting a bunch of (expletive) home runs, too."
It was a sign of things to come, though Skenes would eventually drop his batting gloves and focus exclusively on pitching for the Tigers. There were discussions of Skenes maintaining his two-way status for LSU as late as January. He was more than capable of doing both at an elite level with Air Force, pitching to a 2.72 ERA over 112 innings while hitting .367/.453/.669 with 24 home runs in 100 games.
As Skenes showed improvement on the mound in the offseason, Johnson realized just how special a pitcher he had on his hands. Having one of the most talented lineups in the country likely didn't hurt the decision to have. Skenes stop hitting.
"I was like, 'Wait a minute. This guy is going to get $8 million (as a signing bonus)," " Johnson said. "It kind of became like, 'OK we can do it without him hitting. We can't do it without him pitching.' And if somebody runs a fastball up and in and breaks his right hand and one of his fingers, that's not good for Paul."
Skenes' jump in stuff was immediate.
After sitting 93-94 mph and touching 99 in 2022 with Air Force, Skenes came out sitting in the upper 90s and holding that velocity deep into starts. T...
Back when he was the head coach for Arizona, Johnson distinctly remembers how struck he was by the talent of both players.
For Crews, the famous prep outfield prospect who was a mainstay with USA Baseball's national teams and consistently regarded as one of the most talented players in his class, it was during the 15U USA Baseball roster trials.
"When I saw him I was like, 'Man, that is a real player, "Johnson said. "You could see the talent, but he was so far advanced (in terms of) actually knowing how to play the game (compared) to the normal 15-year-old. It was like Nick Madrigal's instincts and how he moved but with more explosive and athletic talent, if you will."
Johnson would have loved to recruit Crews to Arizona, but Crews announced his commitment to Paul Mainieri's Louisiana State program around the time of the 15U trials.
Skenes wasn't as highly regarded as Crews as a high schooler, but Johnson still remembers being blown away with his talent-but it was his hitting ability that caught his eye at the time.
"I remember seeing him hit in high school on the circuit-Area Codes or something like that and then he was committed to Air Force and I was like, 'Gosh, this has to be one of the best players Air Force has ever signed." " Both Crews and Skenes were members of the 2020 high school class, which meant their senior spring seasons were cut dramatically short and both had to contend with a five-round draft.
Skenes at the time was unranked and committed to Air Force, and even with a full spring seemed unlikely to sign out of high school. Crews was a bit different. He had struggled on the 2019 summer showcase circuit but still possessed some of the best pure bat speed in the class. He ranked as the No. 54 prospect overall and could have potentially moved back up draft boards with a strong senior season at Lake Mary (Fla.) High.
Both players would make it to campus. Crews made headlines when he removed himself from the draft entirely and honored his commitment to LSU. Skenes went undrafted out of El Toro High in Lake Forest, Calif., in the shortest draft in history and made it to campus at Air Force.
"I remember when (Crews) announced he was pulling his name out of the draft. I was like, 'Wow, that's amazing for LSU. That guy is going to tear up college baseball," " Johnson said.
"And then with Paul in 2021... (Air Force) came down to play us at our place in a tournament with Wichita State, and (coach Mike Kazlausky) and I were just standing outside my office talking, and he goes, 'Hey I got this freshman who's really good.
He can't stay here for three years because he's going to be a first-round pick." " Johnson knew exactly the freshman he was talking about and told Kazlausky to please let him know if Skenes ever decided to transfer. He would love the opportunity to coach him at Arizona.
That didn't happen.
Instead, Johnson made a transfer of his own. The LSU coaching job opened after Mainieri retired following the 2021 season. After leading Arizona to a Pacific-12 Conference championship and College World Series appearance in 2021, Johnson moved from Tucson to Baton Rouge and became the 26th head coach in Tigers history.
Johnson got a chance to coach Crews immediately. A year later, after LSU lost in the 2022 Hattiesburg Regional in Mississippi, Johnson started a two-month process of recruiting Skenes, who entered the transfer portal after the 2022 season.
"The only good thing that came out of Covid was the five-round draft," said Johnson, who found success at Arizona in part by getting high-profile 2020 high school hitters Jacob Berry and Daniel Susac to campus. "Between Daniel Susac, Jacob Berry, Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews those are four pretty good players I've had the opportunity to coach."
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1398697516/1687790698/articles/cfdP2LOqE1690797796858/0108554659.jpg]
Susac, who remained at Arizona, and Berry, who followed Johnson to LSU, both became first-round picks as draft-eligible sophomores in 2022. Crews and Skenes will do the same this year.
The two are currently ranked as the Nos. 1 and 2 players in the class. They have a real chance to make history as the first teammates ever to be drafted with the first two picks.
The one question: which player are the Pirates going to choose with the No. 1 overall pick?
"He's everything you (want) in a five-tool player... This year is honestly historic what he's doing... And it's not just like he's performing. He has the tools to back it up. Wherever he goes, it's 1 or 2... It'd be hard to pass on a guy with that kind of talent and ability. He was arguably the No. 1 player coming in and he hasn't made you change your mind on it." -Anonymous scout on Dylan Crews
If there were ever questions about Crews' hitting ability in high school, there are none now.
Since the first day he set foot on campus, he's been one of the best players in college baseball. He set LSU's freshman home run record in 2021 with 18 and was the lone underclassman to make the 2022 preseason All-America first team. He followed up his 2021 campaign by hitting 22 home runs and slashing .349/.463/.691 as a sophomore, all while moving from right field to center, making the Southeastern Conference all-defensive team and being a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award.
The pressure of his draft year did not impact Crews in the least. Throughout much of the 2023 season, Crews led all Division I hitters in batting and flirted with a .500 average weeks into SEC play. He reached base safely in each game of the regular season and through 58 games had hit 420/.567/.710 with 15 home runs and career bests with a 20.9% walk rate and 13.7% strikeout rate.
It's not just surface-level production. Crews has produced some of the loudest exit velocity data in the country, with an average exit velocity of 95-96 mph and a 90th percentile EV at 109110. He's an elite hitter who has paired standout physical tools with an approach that is among the best in the nation.
"Dylan is the best college hitter position player I've ever seen," Johnson said. "Everybody talks about the five tools. Those easily check. You guys can see and rank all of those things. He has all of them. I think just in terms of consistent performance at the highest level of college baseball that's where he stands out.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1398697516/1687790698/articles/cfdP2LOqE1690797796858/1588815888.jpg]
"It has shown up literally in just about every game since I have been here in the last two years, at the most important times, against the best competition. And so it's not a project player. It's a player who has all of the necessary ingredients but they show up on game day. Every single day.
"I don't know if you can even calculate WAR for college baseball, but his would probably be one of the highest in history."
Scouts have said Crews has five above-average to plus tools across the board, which puts him solidly into the rare, and potentially overused, five-tool player category. He has turned in plus run times and projects to have above-average speed even as he ages.
Crews has proven to be an above-average defender in center field who takes advanced routes to the ball and has an excellent first step. His easy plus arm would be an asset at any outfield position.
He showcases the same double-plus bat speed that he had in high school and has near 70-grade raw power in batting practice. Crews has always flashed those loud tools, but the biggest improvement in his game since he was a tooled-up but overly aggressive swinger in high school is his plate approach.
"Just the plate discipline part of it is really impressive," said one scout. "Obviously, when he hits the ball it just takes off. It's a different sound off the bat. But just his at-bats and the at-bat quality were really good. I saw him in high school and there was some chase against secondary stuff off the plate.
"Now he's not chasing. He's got pretty good plate discipline. He's got a pretty good idea of what he's doing and he doesn't miss pitches. Plus he can let the ball travel deep and he's got power the other way. He did everything you can ask when I saw him. They didn't have an answer for him. They couldn't get him out."
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1398697516/1687790698/articles/cfdP2LOqE1690797796858/8WZCMgsQ_1690798323041.jpg]
The ability to confidently the ball travel while trusting his hands and still hitting for impact to the opposite field is the real separator for Crews, and what has led to his supreme consistency in the SEC.
"It's a combination of that bat speed and his tremendous vision," Johnson said. "He has this ability to make later decisions than any player I've ever seen, which leads him to laying off borderline pitches, or pitcher's pitches or balls, and allows him to make a late decision on a mistake. And he ends up hitting those balls out to right field like nobody I have ever seen.
"It is incredibly, incredibly impressive. I see it as a combination of the right approach, that bat speed and vision. To put all those things together, he doesn't swing at balls and he crushes mistakes."
Johnson has called Crews the best recovery hitter he's ever seen. There have been instances when he looks beat on a pitch, and the average college hitter likely would be, but he's able to flash his hands through the zone, make a late decision and hammer the ball over the opposite-field fence.
In two-strike counts, Crews is able to widen his stance, almost remove his stride entirely and still have the power to drive the ball with authority.
"I explain him as the perfectly built baseball player," Johnson said. "I mean he's got an unbelievably strong lower half, unbelievably strong core, he moves correctly and it allows him to be into the ground and incredibly balanced with two strikes.
"So you have that elite vision. You have that elite bat speed and now you have this approach where he is balanced and can react to fastballs when people try to sneak it by him. He spits on the breaking ball out of the zone. He spoils the borderline pitch and he sends the mistake back up to the middle of the field for an extra-base hit, even in a two-strike approach."
"He's definitely the best college pitcher I've seen this year... He's probably the best guy since (Stephen) Strasburg... Just dominating. From last summer to where he is now, he's just made a huge step up. Stuff, pitchability, strikes, obviously throwing harder. But the slider has gotten to be a true wipeout pitch. He stacks up right with Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer... He's going to be a quick mover to the big leagues. I'd say he'll take the same route that Cole and Bauer took. I wouldn't be shocked if he was in a rotation by this time next year." -Anonymous scout on Paul Skenes
If you're going to transfer and focus on pitching, you could do a lot worse than moving to a team that employs Wes Johnson as its pitching coach.
The former Twins pitching coach created shockwaves when he left the big leagues in the middle of the 2022 season to join Johnson's stockpile of talent in Baton Rouge. Skenes has been the most obvious beneficiary of his tutelage.
The two immediately got to work during the fall, with a specific focus on Skenes' slider. It didn't take long before loud reports trickled back from scouts who had seen the 6-foot-6 righthander in his new purple-and-gold digs.
"Apparently, he has been godly this fall," one scout said at the time of Skenes, a three-time, first-team All-American who spent the first two of those seasons as a two-way player. "(He threw) 95-100 (mph) on the fastball with like 70-grade movement. And hitting a bunch of (expletive) home runs, too."
It was a sign of things to come, though Skenes would eventually drop his batting gloves and focus exclusively on pitching for the Tigers. There were discussions of Skenes maintaining his two-way status for LSU as late as January. He was more than capable of doing both at an elite level with Air Force, pitching to a 2.72 ERA over 112 innings while hitting .367/.453/.669 with 24 home runs in 100 games.
As Skenes showed improvement on the mound in the offseason, Johnson realized just how special a pitcher he had on his hands. Having one of the most talented lineups in the country likely didn't hurt the decision to have. Skenes stop hitting.
"I was like, 'Wait a minute. This guy is going to get $8 million (as a signing bonus)," " Johnson said. "It kind of became like, 'OK we can do it without him hitting. We can't do it without him pitching.' And if somebody runs a fastball up and in and breaks his right hand and one of his fingers, that's not good for Paul."
Skenes' jump in stuff was immediate.
After sitting 93-94 mph and touching 99 in 2022 with Air Force, Skenes came out sitting in the upper 90s and holding that velocity deep into starts. T...
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Baseball America (Digital) - 1 Issue, June - July 2023